The mainstream media has been particularly loose with the truth when it comes to President Donald Trump this week, and if you’ve been watching these vultures over the past year, you know that’s really saying something.

First, there were the deeply-cynical attacks on Trump for “not knowing that the Japanese make cars in the U.S.,” a claim based on something he said on his Asian tour. Of course, as – surprisingly – pointed out by the Washington Post’s Aaron Blake, a full reading of Trump’s remarks proves beyond a doubt that the president DOES know that Japanese manufacturers make automobiles in America…because of course he does.

These attacks are a symptom of the laziness of the liberal blogosphere and the thoughtless credulity of Trump’s haters, who are willing to believe just about anything when it comes to his ignorance, his inhumanity, or his outright evil. Whether it’s more a commentary on liberal stupidity, fake news, or our online clickbait culture, we’re not sure. It probably says something nasty about all three.

As far as disturbing media attacks on Trump go, though, the Japanese car one was relatively minor, certain to be forgotten by the end of the week in a culture where comedians and journalists are desperately trying to outdo one another for the lulz.

What’s less acceptable are the liberal pundits who have attacked President Trump for focusing on mental health in the wake of the Sutherland Springs shooting. These pundits aren’t trying to get a laugh at the expense of the president, they are trying to make a point about gun control. And in doing so, they are pointing to Trump’s signing of a law that rolled back an Obama-era regulation.

That regulation, finalized at the tail end of Obama’s presidency, would have automatically added Social Security recipients deemed unfit to handle their own finances to the national background check database, pre-emptively cutting off their Second Amendment rights without even a whiff of due process. This wasn’t just some NRA-endorsed law, like Trump’s critics make it out to be – it was also championed by the likes of the ACLU, a group not necessarily known for its strong stance on gun rights. They do, however, know blatant unconstitutionality when they see it.

The same cannot be said for liberals, who are now calling Trump out for his “hypocrisy.” Whether these liberals don’t know what they’re talking about or they are merely pandering to readers who don’t…it mostly comes to the same. Like the Japanese car company attack, it is a cynical and braindead approach to political criticism. These liberals have absolutely nothing of value to add to the conversation after a mass shooting, they are stubbornly unwilling to face the facts about what measures do and don’t make a difference, and so they are left to simply generate anger and hostility against Republicans every time one of these shootings occurs.

For all the hand-wringing the left does about Trump’s effect on political discourse in this country, they certainly are responsible for their fair share of the coarsening.